On Thursday, Clare O’ Neil, Minister of home affairs unveiled ambition to make Australia the most cyber secure country. At the national press club address on Thursday, Neil indicated that it would be less of a recast and more of a completely ‘’new cyber security strategy for Australia’’.
Recently Australia faced several large-scale ransomware attacks. Amid these attacks, the government launched a program to develop a new cyber-security strategy.
Strengthen critical infrastructure and government networks
Speaking at the National press club Neil said that ‘’ I want Australia to be the world’s most cyber-secure country by 2030. And I believe that is possible. But we need a reset and a pathway to get there.’
She also added that cyber security strategy will be helpful to Australians. It will bring the whole nation into the fight to help protect the citizens. It will also help protect the economy. Moreover, it will help strengthen government networks and critical infrasturture.
Medibank hack affected 9.7 million customers
Australia experienced two of the worst cyber attacks in the last two months alone. The first one was the Medibank attack which affected almost 9.7 million current and former customers. And the second was the Optus hack, a data breach of 10 million customers within one week.
However, O’Neil stressed that realizing Australia’s cyber-security goals will require time and money. She admits that the country is “not spending enough on cyber defense”.
She added “This will be a 100-person team, permanently focused on hunting down people seeking to hack our systems and hacking back,” said O’Neil. “It will take some time to get this singing, but when it does, it will change the game for cyber in Australia.”
The announcement is welcomed by many, especially in some parts of the IT industry. As security has become one of the most concern of the country.
